reaching out

to the cyberhermitage that is savage reserve. So as my cyberworld expands I have begun to receive strangers into my hermitage. I'm not talking desperate scammers from the Bank of Nigeria, but actual people. I just received an invitation to stay in the handsome building known as the Harmony Club of Selma which is odd as it does not appear to have accommodation, despite the so-called residential floor.

As the charming but not so informative website explains, the Harmony Club was set up by the Jewish community of Selma, Alabama. In 1930s it became the home of the Elks, which sounds like one of those Barney Rubble type secret societies. So what happened to the Jews of Selma? Does anyone know? Did they head out west with the Joads? Emigrate? There was no Jewish state to speak of? I imagine the building for years abandoned empty like the temple MM and I visited in Plovdiv with its beautiful naive art and its abandoned scrolls and apparatus of worship, and how MM spoke Spanish to the Ladino speaking caretaker. A language that had been carried to Eastern Europe by the Jews leaving Spain, some east, some West with Columbus to the New World, a phrase which now looks odd as its local referent here is a chain of supermarkets. That gives a new spin to the John Donne poem

let us others to New Worlds have gone

doesn't it?

I am rambling and you have better things to do...

rehydrating

is probably good idea right now. Though, never the poster boy for the late 2oth early 21st century, I am not one for toting round a waterbottle. So I guess my veins are shrinking or necrotising or something nasty as we speak, and it could according to the pump ads be (partially) responsible for my miserable attention span ... though I am still blame late onset attention deficit disorder ...

Anyway the long awaited tour of the 'Grad with Melf and Sean was well worth the angst of a four hour delay in arrival. Especially since they brought with them a bottle of seven tiki white rum and (left behind the last of the) manuka honey vodka. Either of these mixes with ginger beer and lime went perfectly with late after noon badminton on the lawn.

Games where it is reasonably possible to participate with a glass in hand are the best kind, clearly. Despite losing in the Manawatustan Wellington play-offs it was a good time all round(s after rounds). The proceedings were interrupted by the unusual Spanish women he keeps a lot of her furniture in my garage., but that was all by the by.

We went into town and showcased the local residents' talent at the local karaoke joint. Which is breath-taking, but not in the way you might think. Palmengrad appears to be bride capital of the universe. We spotted 7 different hen parties. Each with not-so-blushing-bride with veil and skimpy outfits, all matching a theme ... naughty catholic school girls seems popular this year, which gives a whole porn-as-as-street-theatre atmosphere to the strip.

Melanie succinctly summed up the problem of the 'Grad, from a Newtown/Wellie perspective ... there is only the equivalent to Courtney Place here.

Speaking of 'atmosphere' this time as a lexical item, I awoke the other day to ad on the local radio for a brand new restaurant "opposite the hospital" ... fire your copywriter ... which has rebranded itself and has a great new name .... ambiente', pronounced in the approximation of a French accent as only a resident of the 'Grad could produce AM-BE-ANT-TAY. If you have to French it up a little, what's so wrong with ambience?

The locals, conservative about all other facets of life, have a very gung ho attitude to language. I'm not one an apostrophe-obsessed person. It is perfectly reasonable for people to be confounded by the rules of the little bugger, as the standardisation of this aspect was produced by printers not linguists or authors as late as the nineteenth century. Besides, the morphology of English is so poor that in spoken language we do not distinguish the ending -s as attached to verbs to mark 3rd singular present habitual aspect, and both plurality and possession on nouns. Yet no-one is confused when listening because we recognise word class and function from context. I digress ... rant ... What locals here seem to enjoy is sprinkling diacritics from other languages over perfectly reasonable English words in a manner reminiscent of heavy metal bands. There is a hotel named after an English county which has a nice overlay of umlauts above each of the vowels, which must really confuse the German and Hungarian tourists. Another obsession is inappropriate z. Just down the road from the aforementioned hotel, is another imaginatively named shadzz. Most locals have no idea how this is meant to be pronounced, which surely would impact on room occupancy rates, no?

And before I go. If you hanker after white rum, take a look at seven tiki. The bottle and the website reproduce the legend of the seven canoes that brought the Maaori to this corner of Polynesia. Who says hard liquor can't be educational. Though, if you ever find yourself navigating an outrigger in the Pacific in hopes of finding us down here, don't rely on the map on the bottle. For some reason, Tonga is west of Tahiti and more northerly than Hawai'i ...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

So how was your day?

I am over over over my 'clients'. In other news I have felt hung over all day after a big night out on 3 drinks.

After a birthday drop-in on a friend with a boxed gerbera ... rapidly becoming the most insincere flower ... replacing the chrysanthemum and the carnation ... though they are kinda disney-like .... I ended up watching people salsa at a Chinese bar (?!!). Men seem to like dancing salsa. I think because if you can you look good at it. Salsa skills perhaps run along an inverted bell curve, as you see a lot of good salsa dancers and a lot so-so ones, but really no-one in between. Perhaps men like it because it is such an instructed dance, they seem to be listening to a little voice in their heads counting one and two and, and shouting hip-swaying instructions. Hmm I guess I am not a big fan of these contrived styles. Dancing is a language and last night most of them looked like they were lip syncing it.

Gosh criticism? Here on Savage Reserve? Perhaps because I feel unable to criticise the aforementioned clients. So sorry dancers, sorry salsa fans, I'm projecting.

no comment?

Blogger won't let me comment on my own blog! So this is for you K. Yes anything with crust in it is hilarious and any expression with moist makes me blush

someone needs to go

to abuse school. Walking home on Friday night at the dangerous hour of 9pm, I got this shouted at me from a dude in a car

you're a fucking sexy man ... or woman ... or whatever you are

I think I'll analyse that as an initial slippage with a poorly attempted coverup.
Still abuse from passing cars is the norm here. I had apples pelted at me from a moving vehicle the first week I lived in this town which really kicked off my loving relationship with this place.
Ill-advisedly, we went out last night. We forgot it was St Patrick's day ... and fiddly dee potatoes to that, I say. Though I did learn an amusing new expression -kia ora begorrahs i.e. people of Irish and Maaori ancestry. Everywhere we were out of place, too old, not rugby enough, not emo enough, not wearing green, not pissed till puking. MelF and McDreamy are coming up next weekend and I am worried now about how entertain them. I am tired of smirking at the provincial ways here. It is no longer amusing, now I get that there are no alternatives.

calendarisationmania

apropos to the apropos to MM's post. I have been scouring the net for more examples of the calendarisation of professions. Though perhaps as not as odd as the men of mortuaries, the gondoliers of Venice have been immortalised and calendarised, and most sacrilegiously, priests of Rome

if you're fond of

sand dunes and salty air....

When I was a kid summer started just before school ended in December. But things have been happening here on Earth since then ... global warming? crustal shift? cellphones? and now summer starts the day school starts back.

To celebrate the greenhouse affect, today I went to the beach. I am actually not much of a beach-goer. In fact, my co-beach-goers were surprised and a little put out that I didn't want to swim. I would have had there been waves, but to me there is little point in swimming when there's barely a tide. And besides, because there were kids in our party they swam between the flags in a very crowded people soup. So I instead investigated the sand dunes and burnt the soles of my feet in doing so ... Doesn't this, though .....

.... seem more inspiring than that?

I still find it hard to believe that on many parts of the coastline, the local governments not only allow but generally encourage people to drive up and down the beach ... so much for salty air.

lost in found

Have spent the afternoon at foundmagazine. I used to look at all the time but then I forgot about it. So I guess I found it again. Anyways, I am sentimental, and nostalgic for things that we might have experienced individually and yet somehow remember collectively. Is that you, zeitgeist, haunting us all?

This photo received a lot of comments, especially from women who used to own these togs. Many wished they still had them now. She's a little scary, a little fierce, but so so cool...

Anyways, as much as the found photographs are arresting, it is often the little notes, the scraps of thoughts addressed to the self, a lover, or a stranger who has boxed your car in at the carpark that really grab you ...

say no to bbqs

dammit. At least last night's one could be the last of year, given that summer is officially over. I think the autumn equinox could be reorganised slightly and celebrated as the end of wiener season.

So I have the blahs today, and I have tried to walk it off. But apart from some cool kites it didn't really work. I should be preparing stuff for tomorrow but you know me... I was going to give you a virtual tour of my lounge with new pacifika frames but only this shot come out anywhere near decent



There is a tiny spot of blood ... my blood on one of them ... but I'll not tell you which.

why I love country music

So back in the old teaching saddle and well let's say I am uninspired. And that's not the fault of country music! What is so wrong with southern white culture, anyways. To be clear, I'm not talking Garth Brooks or old achy breaky or even the dixie chicks. I mean Lucinda or Bonny Prince Billy/Palace Music. Particularly the latter. Gulf shores has got to be the most beautiful song ever written. Besides how could a man who looks like this ...




... not make beautiful music?

Yes, when I am nostalgic I still get out the old Smiths on vinyl and gaze at my shoes, especially now I wear glasses, and quite possibly ready for a hearing aid.

and so it ends,

the holiday, that is. Classes start in a week, and hopefully that will pull the curtain down on the bbq season. Have spent the day moping and listening to country music ... it improves the quality of one's moping so.

Apropos of Monkey's Max post for French cosmetics with the Naked-ish chef guy, I add to that general theme. Taking one's clothes off is becoming part of every one's job description. Calendars of firemen, post office workers, knitters, etc have somehow become a legitimate fundraising/charity jag. And to prove that one must be prepared to calendarise oneself no matter one's vocation I present to you ... men of mortuaries

my life is turning into

Tuesday night TV programming. There's nothing I want to watch and then on Tuesday at 9.30 I have to flick channels to watch my THREE favourite programs. Tomorrow I am double booked ... a potentially hot date and a birthday party and I am not a good enough negotiator to change things.

In other news, at the big red shed today where I bought a very crappy set of kitchen scales ... the container thingy where the stuff you are weighing sits keeps sliding off ... Oh well $9 ... Anyways a middle aged bogan couple there was arguing over the stuffed toys. They were comparing two white tigers. The woman was adamant - we should get this one. You can see the whites of its eyes better.

Makes it so much more authentic.

Spent the rest of the day killing spiders. I have been trying to live with them in a we-are-sharing-the-planet kind of a way, but they were just not keeping up with their side of the bargain. Too many babies and too many cobwebs. So I would have made a braveheart era Mel Gibson proud with my war cry and sword ... well duster ... wielding and the revelling in the spider carnage

another post? I must be

on holiday. Speaking of holidays, Valentines is coming up ... despite the implied tone of the previous post, I am not really a big fan of Valentines. Just recently in the big city I ran into Sam who married Melissa. This was a good idea. Proposing on Valentine's day was not. Now because the day is so meaningful ... yes italics can also mean slightly sarcastic intonation he was having a full on panic about what to get her.

For Sam, and others in the same boat I suggest Meg's anti-Valentines day cards. Hell you can even send me one.

The only real fun I have had on Valentines I have really had was back in 1990. Pathetic sad-do you say? That was my only American Valentine's day. I went to the pet store with K. First off, it was a 24hr pet store! Secondly, there was a special 'tarantulas for the one you love.' (I'm not afraid of spiders, they just annoy me with their goddam webs, and how their shit sticks to the ceiling ... would it be less annoying if it fell on my head? But, hell, don't send me that!). Thirdly there was the fun and shennanigans of hiding the card in the fridge, in the toaster ... yes re-used for more Valentines fun. Oh jolly japes .... Indeed I am a pathetic saddo!

my research is

sexy. Apparently. I have acquired a secret-ish admirer who discovered me through some research I was doing last year. We are to meet at the end of the week. Remember kids, there's a fine line between stalking and romance...

In other news my holiday taking abilities seem to have improved. I ran away to the big city and had big city fun. Saw J and S's completed renovations. The house looks extraordinarily beautiful, and would be way too house and garden for me if they hadn't incorporated S's kooky interest in industrial lighting. Also saw Dot'n'Ben for the first time in five years. She has has stopped dyeing her hair, and is kinda blond! Who knew? Well I guess EMO isn't big in Perth. Had dinner with them and J and J' sister and partner. I have to admit I sometimes feel like my Czech students used to feel. These people are unashamedly materialistic, and oh Bourdieu how right you were about symbolic violence, and the mean-ness and aggression that is bourgeois taste. I also ran into Marty and Matty. I got a big hug and a kiss from both of them, and they both seem more evenly keeled than they have been for a while. Marty especially was back to his charming self. Now this sounds creepy, but what I love about that city is that walking around, I occasionally get the glad eye. That never happens here. I feel invisible, or tolerated at best.

So Dr L's wife has gone south again, and suddenly he wants to socialise. That's okay I guess, but thanks for disappearing on me for a year ... and also please note, not every one loves surprise visits...

And thanks to Bryan's suggestion the panels are hung and are covering up the deep dark red of the lounge walls. I did though have to translate the term 'drywall'. We call it 'gib' though it may be spelled j-i- b. My next project - washing the windows ... Okay so maybe my holiday skills aren't all that great ...

Still no photos ... I keep leaving my camera at work.

I can't sleep without you,

television. So my holiday continues and I am gritting my teeth and bearing it. It seems to be making me grumpy and paranoid. I can't seem to train my friends not to make un-announced visits or be punctual. So I am running away to the big city. My second attempt...

In other news, I watched a charming segment of the news about Nana revivalism. These Art School Welly-ites host Nana Sundays where they sit and knit and eat lammingtons, and make ironic craftpieces. Reminds me of Caroline's punk crochet period. I got a crocheted spiderweb for my birthday once. Its awesome ... but its losing its pompoms.

Who said irony was so nineties!

crap at holidays

unless playing patience counts. I am never going in for home improvement projects again ... So about two years ago I bought some pacificcy flowery fabrics to make panels to hang on the walls to replace the yes-we've-been-to-the-louvre-and loved-Monets-and-only-like-Picasso's-blue-period prints my landlords put up to create bella figura in the Villa Palmangrada. And finally I got round to attaching them to frames. They look great despite the stress that hammering and gluing created, and if you look closely round the back you can see my blood ... That's what happens when you use a shoe for a hammer... But Oh God Oh God Oh God trying to hang them up ... my mouth was afire with obscenities. Getting them even ... getting them straight ... getting the hooks to catch the string ... then the adhesive hooks falling out .... Oh God Oh God ... I guess I will finish the project next year... Perhaps there are professionals who can come and do the hanging. It would be worth it whatever the price.

I had my haircut today which is always an awful experience. But Myra ... Yes, Myra .... was explaining that her previous client was throwing a 50th birthday surprise party for a friend who had already celebrated the anniversary of her birth on the day it fell, back in November last year. I guess she will be very surprised.

I future air hostess getranslated

Okay so I am a lazy language learner ... on occasion ... I added that last bit for professional purposes ... but sometimes I can't be bothered retrieving German verbs from the end of the sentence. I wanted to read a review of Kitty Solaris future air hostess. You know try before you buy, and all that. And I am wanting to recreate some Berlin cafe atmosphere here in the Palmengrad ... But like I said I got bored and so I resorted to Babelfish ... and got this ... which is almost as charming as the original ...

Lo-Fi-icon. Who please invents such words? Power itself surely well on pale t-Shirts, which stretch themselves over the chests of Indiemaedels with asymmetrical crop. Or alternatively also on schmalbruestigen gentleman bodies with Indietopfschnitt. Meant finally the employment is historical, no more with the state of the art of going geraetschaften in the studio. Or at least the creation of a likewise sounding sound. The "citizens of Berlin Lo-Fi-icon" Kitty Solaris and its partner Steffen fitter look for the well-being sound of the Grossstadtfolks on "Future air Hostess" above all. And dearest in strengthened form. Already the Opener and album high point "CHANGE Something" tells of inconspicuous arrangements and beautiful melodies. Usually are sufficient for it guitar, bass and a quiet schlagzeug. A bubbling Melotron possibly still refines by Moog and. Because somewhat too smoothly knitted, too many Songs appear however in all world living and can make so quite no impression. Surprise do rather those to suddenly bratzenden guitars in "You Have to Shave Mister" or thick "thousand tears the Tief" Blumfeld Beat of "Changing Cards". The remainder is all too often maintained boredom for citizen of Berlin scene Cafés, in which humans with Lo-Fi-icon-Shirts drink slat Macchiato. Plus or other beautiful melody.

My special favourites ... a quiet schlagzeug and schmalbruestigen gentleman bodies with Indietopfschnitt. And that is a killer final sentence. Now where can I get a pale Lo-Fi-Icon t-shirt?
Slat Macchiato anyone?

I'm freezing buckets

of water for a friend. She has bought a lifestyle block and some cows and has to fill up a tank for them. It is easier to transport water frozen in the back of her car, so I have taken up ice duty. My freezer has four green buckets. Apparently cows drink up to 40 litres a day. Can that be right?




I made friends again with Almodovar last night. Volver is fantastic, and was great to see Carmen Maura again. While there I got mistaken for a photographer. I had framed the photo of the chairs at the Heruharema convent, and was explaining how I was unhappy with it. This guy then asked me when my exhibition was. This is a much happier event than when a lady sat on top of me at that very cinema. But that is another story.

still sleeping

with the television on. So things picked up and then dropped back to the previous low levels of fun. I have had a falling out slash misunderstanding with a friend which will mean another silent weekend around here. But oh oh oh what news - camera obscura is saving my life. Particularly the track I need all the friends I can't get.

not schmerzig

but damn pissed off. I invited 2 friends who shall go un-named out for dinner. My treat. They both ATE DINNER before hand. How can you not know how to go out to dinner? The restaurant was also a disaster. There were tomato sauce bottles on the table. You ordered at the kitchen. They gave you a number on a stand. THIS IS NOT HOW I WANT TO LIVE!